"I hate cooking. What's a maid?"
"Why, a woman who helps others."
"Helps folks that they love? I'd like that."
"It is not a question of affection," said Miss Taylor, firmly: "one is paid for it."
"I wouldn't work for pay."
"But you'll have to, child; you'll have to earn a living."
"Do you work for pay?"
"I work to earn a living."
"Same thing, I reckon, and it ain't true. Living just comes free, like--like sunshine."
"Stuff! Zora, your people must learn to work and work steadily and work hard--" She stopped, for she was sure Zora was not listening; the far away look was in her eyes and they were shining. She was beautiful as she stood there--strangely, almost uncannily, but startlingly beautiful with her rich dark skin, softly moulded features, and wonderful eyes.
"My people?--my people?" she murmured, half to herself. "Do you know my people? They don't never work; they plays. They is all little, funny dark people. They flies and creeps and crawls, slippery-like; and they cries and calls. Ah, my people! my poor little people! they misses me these days, because they is shadowy things that sing and smell and bloom in dark and terrible nights--"
Miss Taylor started up. "Zora, I believe you're crazy!" she cried. But Zora was looking at her calmly again.
"We'se both crazy, ain't we?" she returned, with a simplicity that left the teacher helpless.
Miss Taylor hurried out, forgetting her pin. Zora looked it over leisurely, and tried it on. She decided that she liked it, and putting it in her pocket, went out too.
School was out but the sun was still high, as Bles hurried from the barn up the big road beside the soft shadows of the swamp. His head was busy with new thoughts and his lips were whistling merrily, for today Zora was to show him the long dreamed of spot for the planting of the Silver Fleece. He hastened toward the Cresswell mansion, and glanced anxiously up the road. At last he saw her coming, swinging down the road, lithe and dark, with the big white basket of clothes poised on her head.
"Zora," he yodled, and she waved her apron.
He eased her burden to the ground and they sat down together, he nervous and eager; she silent, passive, but her eyes restless. Bles was full of his plans.
"Zora," he said, "we'll make it the finest bale ever raised in Tooms; we'll just work it to the inch--just love it into life."
She considered the matter intently.
"But,"--presently,--"how can we sell it without the Cresswells knowing?"